Why are there two Mount Ords in Arizona? There is one in the White Mountains and one near Four Peaks.

Why do you care? I mean, there are plenty of Thompsons in the phone book, but do you hear me complaining? This Ord guy was very popular, at least when it came to the naming-places department.

You've heard of Fort Ord in California? Same guy.

Anyway, I was going to try to impress you by giving the elevations of both Mount Ords, but I found three or four measurements for each, so let's just skip that. Suffice it to say the White Mountains Mount Ord (just west of Mount Baldy) is 4,000 or so feet taller than the other one (just east of the Beeline Highway near Sunflower).

Whatever. They are both titled for the elegantly named Maj. Gen. Edward Otho Cresap Ord.

I know this because I looked it up in "Arizona's Names (X Marks the Place)" by the late and equally elegantly named Byrd Howell Granger.

Cresap was Ord's mother's maiden name. I don't know where Otho came from. Why or how we managed to name two mountains after the same guy, I'm not quite sure. I guess people just liked him.

Ord was a Maryland native who graduated from West Point, fought in the Seminole War and, in 1847, was dispatched to California with, among others, Lt. William Tecumseh Sherman. They went on to distinguish themselves during the Civil War, and Ord ended up as the head of the Department of California during the Indian wars in Arizona.

Ord died of yellow fever in Cuba in 1883. He was, according to Granger, "noted for his uncompromising attitude as an Apache exterminator."